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The war goes lights-out

Spring is here, unless you live in Colorado. There, it’s January. But for the rest of us, the warmer weather has arrived, and that means the animals are launching their newest campaign against mankind. This time, they’re exploiting our dependence on electricity.

In Virginia, a squirrel decided to make thousands of people’s morning that much worse. The local utility says a squirrel damaged some power equipment in Newport News, Virginia and knocked out the power to 9,500, all before they even left for work. This means that a lot of people missed their alarms because of a stupid tree rodent. They’re clever.

A couple weeks ago, another rodent tried something even more dangerous in Japan. Remember the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the one that melted down after the huge earthquake and tsunami knocked it out? They’re still trying to keep the reactors for doing further damage, and all that was put at risk by a rat that climbed into a switchboard and knocked out power to the facility for three days. All the while, the pumps bringing in cold water to keep the reactors cool had no electricity.